January 13, 2009

Today Miss Heide came over and we finished up some past sewing projects. I worked on my would-be Christmas dress. This was a project I had begun before Christmas with the thought that if I got it finished before Anna’s purple dress, it might be nice to have a new dress for Christmas. But since she was priority, and since I had to have a matching outfit for our Christmas program, that went on standby.
This dress is a medium burgundy with a tight pattern of the light burgundy vines and leaves. I’m using an Advance Pattern 8007, size 16. I’m pretty sure this pattern is from the 1940s. (Size 16 had a 27 inch waist.) The lining is a light peach, very thin, and easy to tear when I’m ripping out my stitches!
There are seven gores, with a angled fitted waistline and a small walking split in the back. The neck is a wide boat neck with a little V-dip. I raised the neckline on the pattern by 1 ½ inches, since I don’t like to wear extremely low necked garments. The dress is slightly longer than knee length on me, and only because the amount of fabric I had wouldn’t allow for any more length. I am taking the minimum hem allowance to conserve fabric, and facing it out with bias tape. The sleeves are small cap sleeves.
I still have to put in the zipper, hem with the bias tape, overcast the seams, secure the lining, and then this dress will be finished.
(And the family camera is now charged, and so I am in the process of photo shooting my projects.)